Social cognition refers to the mental processes involved in perceiving, interpreting, and reasoning about others' emotions, intentions, and behaviors. Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders consistently exhibit deficits in social cognition, which are associated with impaired social functioning and psychosocial outcomes and remain an important treatment target despite pharmacological management.
Although psychosocial interventions targeting social cognition have demonstrated beneficial effects, their implementation is often limited by the need for prolonged, therapist-led, in-person treatment. Recent studies suggest that digital interventions may improve accessibility while producing meaningful improvements in core social cognitive domains, particularly emotion processing and social cue perception.
Based on this evidence, AffectUs was developed as a smartphone-based digital therapeutic application that provides brief, repeated, remote training in emotion processing and social cue perception for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. This exploratory study evaluates the safety and preliminary effectiveness of AffectUs and aims to provide foundational evidence for future confirmatory clinical trials of digital therapeutics for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
